


He doesn't fix me, but he helps

by sesquipedalianMarquis



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Affection, Angst, Anxiety, Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Oneshot, POV Third Person, Unbeta'd, angst in space, excessive worrying, first fic, i almost slipped into second person homestuck POV god damn it, mention of blankets, sfw, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 19:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13724328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquipedalianMarquis/pseuds/sesquipedalianMarquis
Summary: Hunk feels that coping with his worries is difficult, and seeks out Lance.(that's pretty much all that happens)They're in love, but you can read it as platonic friends, if you want.





	He doesn't fix me, but he helps

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to me boy, my son, my sweet, Luke. Happy Birthday.
> 
> This work is largely unedited, so if you find any errors, do let me know. Hurra for my first published fanfic on AO3!
> 
> I was listening to Space Oddity (David Bowie) and Where Is My Mind (Pixies). It's not a songfic, but I recommend these songs anyways because they're good.

Sometimes Hunk wonders if they would have refused if they had known the details of what they were getting into.  
It’s a bad train of thought. It leads him to consider the fact that despite all the shit they’ve survived, he still doesn’t know what’s going to happen to them next, what awful things they’ll have to face.  
One of them might die. They might all still die in this awful, cruel war. He might have to bury his friends. There might not even be anything left to bury. They could all die out here, in the cold vastness of space, and their families back home would never know, and-  
His chest squeezes tight and he has to force himself to breathe, slowly, in and out. He notices his hands shaking. No, this is too hard to deal with alone. He needs help.  
Where’s Lance?  
Usually he’s hard to miss, bubbly and energetic and so social. He just has that gravity of charisma, that easygoing charm that’s hard to miss. It feels like the room orients itself towards Lance. Then again, that might just be Hunk himself.

He stands up from the dining room table and leaves, rubbing his hands over his arms for the comforting tactile sensation. Dealing with the circling thoughts alone is difficult and intensely exhausting, and Hunk knows he’s already weary. There’s been a lull in the fighting, but instead of relaxing, it just makes him feel more on edge. It’s easier to sleep after a fight, when the adrenaline and the exertion leaves you exhausted enough to shut off your circling mind.  
The corridors of the castle seem to stretch forever as he heads to Lance’s room. Focus on your breathing, he tells himself, consciously interrupting his own train of thought every time it attempts to take a turn for the worse. Just breathe, in and out, keep it regular. His chest hurts.  
His fist shakes as he knocks on the door to Lance’s room and he quickly puts it back on his arm. There’s no one around to see him, but he still resents the way he trembles.  
“Lance?” he calls, and he wants to add more words, explain what’s going on, but his brain refuses to let him use the words. So he just stands there in numb silence for what might be seconds or minutes; time gets weird when his thoughts race.  
“Lance,” he tries again, “You in there?”  
Again, silence. Hunk tries to clear his throat, but the choking feeling isn’t so easily dislodged. Think, Hunk. Where’s Lance if he’s not in the dining area or in his room? He knows for a fact that Allura and Coran are the only ones on the bridge.

Time for an educated guess, then. He resists the urge to just curl up in the corner, even though the thought seems very appealing, just curl into a tiny ball and wait for this to pass…  
Except it won’t quite pass, ever, and he might as well curl into a ball near someone he trusts.  
Hunk keeps heading down the corridor, then takes a turn that will bring him towards the outer hull of the castle. Most of the lights are turned off to preserve energy, so he wanders through the halls in the dim blue glow of the reserve lighting. As familiar as it’s become, it’s still kind of surreal. A giant castle spaceship, which is way too conspicuous if you think about it, and the Galra could show up any minute to blast them out of the sky--  
He bites the inside of his cheek to forcibly interrupt himself yet again and his hands tighten on his arms. He’d dig his fingernails into his skin to ground himself in reality, but after almost a week of the constant threat of an attack looming over him, with his brain walking ever tighter circles, he doesn’t really have a lot of fingernail left, they’re nervously chewed as short as they can go. His teeth scrape over the inside of his cheek. It had almost healed, but he chewed it open again; the flesh is tender and sore when he probes it with his tongue. At least the discomfort anchors him a bit.

Finally, he reaches the outermost part of the castle-ship. The door hisses open and he lets out a relieved breath.  
“Hey. Lance.”  
Lance doesn’t turn around. He’s sitting on a settee in front of the see-through wall, looking out at the stars with his knees drawn up to his chest. A nearby planet reflects starlight in soft blue, tinting the dark room a bit like an aquarium. The heating is either turned off or busted, so the room is cold; Lance has a blanket over his shoulders.  
“Hey Hunk,” he says, quietly. His voice is low and rough; Hunk can tell he’s been crying. “Wanna-” Lance’s voice cracks awkwardly and he pauses to clear his throat. “Wanna come over here?”  
Hunk shuffles into the room. The door hisses shut behind him and he sits down on the settee, mimicking Lance’s position. His hands tremble as he hugs his knees. There’s a moment of silence, like they’re both waiting for the other to speak. Hunk tries to find words for how he’s feeling, but can’t find any. It’s like his vocabulary is empty and his mind is full, too full with the tension and the worry and the fear.  
Lance speaks first. Well, he clears his throat again, wipes his face with the hem of his shirt and then speaks, his voice still raw.  
“You’re not doing so good either, huh?” He’s not teasing, just entirely empathetic. They’re barely more than kids, thrown into a situation that’s way beyond them. He understands. He misses home, that’s why he’s sitting here in front of all these stars. None of them are familiar.  
Hunk nods.  
“Yeah, I get you.” Lance leans in and rests his shoulder against Hunk’s. The warm touch of another human helps, in this cold blue room, with thousands of unfeeling stars and the vastness of space laid out before them. “It gets lonely out here,” he says. “Sometimes I feel like we’re the last people left, when we’re just floating in the middle of nowhere. I know we’re not, but man, space is vast.” His voice comes a little smoother, now that he’s talked a bit. He speaks his words soft and slow because he knows how fast Hunk overloads when his brain is fried.  
“I’m here,” Hunk tells him. It’s not enough, and he knows it, but he can’t make himself do more words and he can’t be all that he needs to feel better. Just like Lance can’t fix him. But he helps and Hunk hopes fiercely that he helps Lance too.  
“I know you are,” Lance says, with a fondness in his voice that makes Hunk ache between his ribs, different from the fear that’s squeezing the air out of him. “I’d have gone mad ages ago without you, man,” and he’s so genuine in it, so gentle that Hunk aches to hold him and make his sorrows go away.  
“You need a hug, big guy?” Lance offers. “Or just company? We can talk about it if you want.”  
“Hugs,” Hunk says and loosens his posture a bit. Lance shuffles a bit and drapes his blanket over Hunk’s shoulders, then taps Hunk’s legs.  
“C’mon, make some space. It’s time for super bad emotion hugs. We’re gonna hang on until the upset is better, and then we can maybe talk about why the upset is happening. That sound good?”  
Hunk nods and sets his feet on the ground. Lance seats himself across Hunk’s lap and puts his arms around him, holding tight.

Hunk appreciates it. When Lance holds him close like that, it’s like he keeps him from falling apart into brittle little pieces. He embraces Lance back, because Lance is hurting too, he’s hurting from the loneliness and the isolation and the stress, and if they don’t comfort each other, who will? So he holds Lance like he can protect him from the world, and he would, he knows he’d take a bullet for Lance and he knows that Lance would do the same for him. The trembling in his hands eases a bit. Lance doesn’t fix him, but he helps, he’s warm and alive in Hunk’s arms and he smells like home. He focuses on that, breathing slowly in and out, and feels the pressure on his chest loosen just a bit. It feels like something inside him cracks, something that’s been holding back, and he sobs quietly. He’s afraid, afraid for the universe and the Earth and his friends here in the castle. He’s so afraid he can’t sleep and food doesn’t taste good and everything aches with the tension in him, but it’s okay, maybe just for a few minutes. It’s okay because Lance is here and holding him tight and tears roll down Hunk’s face because he can be vulnerable. Because Lance is afraid too, but being with him makes Hunk feel like they have a chance. As long as Lance is there, Hunk can pick himself up and keep fighting, and if he can’t, Lance is there to catch him when he falls.  
“There, there,” Lance mumbles and strokes his hands up and down Hunk’s back. “Let it out. I got you.”  
They cling to each other in the cold blue light, because they’re not okay, but they can be not okay together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Do leave a comment if you enjoyed it. Or if you didn't, so I can improve my writing in the future.


End file.
